Interplay Calls Bethesda's Fallout Claim "Absurd"

[gamerguyal]

Bethesda needs to spend less time worrying about stupid technicalities and more time developing Elder Scrolls V. Who's with me?

 

[Warachia]

They should make the MMO Fallout about you with your own company, you have your own copyright to a specific item, you can combine this and make new copyrights by working with others and making short-long term contracts, both would choose what new idea they could get the rights to, and when you aretrying to use rights of others but they just won't let you, it could focus on the legal battles between both sides, and the not so legal backstabbing attempts. Shouldn't be too hard, some Mafia Wars, Office Management, and maybe a little phoenix wright between two people.

Seems like a good idea at this point and can be really reflective on how some companies treat others.

 

[Narcogen]

This is stupid beyond fucking belief (from Bethesda's side). Why don't they collaborate and make Fallout bigger than it ever was, subsequently bringing both companies bigger profits?

Not to mention this only increases my distaste towards the way people can legally twist words.

Sometimes that's a useful skill.

Bethesda aren't stupid. This is legal manuevering. The relationship between Bethesda and Interplay has obviously soured, and regardless of what agreements were previously made, Bethesda doesn't want Interplay using the property anymore, not even for the previously agreed-upon MMO project.

That means Bethesda's lawyers are going to go through those agreements with a fine tooth comb and look for anything-- absolutely anything-- to show that Interplay was or is in breach. If the agreement lacked specificity on what constitutes "Fallout" beyond the name, they'll pounce on that. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't.

 

[Narcogen]

They sold the IP but licensed back the rights to develop and publish the MMO. They actually offered to sell the MMO rights to Bethesda too, but Bethesda declined, because that would cost them extra. So now they're trying to get these rights for free by claiming that all Interplay had rights to use was just the title, which is ridiculous.

Or good business sense.

Without specifics I can only speculate, but since the franchise itself was sold, and the MMO rights re-licensed to Interplay, what seems to have occurred does not actually match up with your description. Presumably Interplay had to pay a licensing fee to make the MMO, and the price of this license either was either reduced from the sale price of the franchise, or offset in some other way that made it attractive to Bethesda for Interplay to continue development. The licensing fee may even be nonrefundable.

So for Bethesda, the prospects work out like this:

1) They buy Fallout and get the profits that result from the games they develop/publish using that property.
2) Interplay pays Bethesda a license fee to make their MMO. If it comes out, great. It's possible Interplay would have to pay a percentage to Bethesda, which is even better.
3) If the game doesn't come out, Bethesda keeps the license fee and the rights revert.
4) If the game comes out, but sucks, there are no profits to share and the property's reputation is damaged. Bethesda may still get to keep the license fee, but this may not be fair compensation for the loss of a share of profits of a successful MMO, or for the indirect losses caused by releasing a bad game.

It seems clear to me from Bethesda's actions that they think #4 is the most likely scenario and are taking every possible action to prevent the game from being completed or released.

Would Bethesda offer the licensing fee back? Probably not, unless there's an obligation in the contract for it, and since they want to show that Interplay doesn't actually have, nor actually can have, a Fallout MMO, they probably don't feel returning the fee is warranted.

Would Interplay accept the refund if offered? Again, probably not. It probably isn't large enough to cover their costs to date, and it doesn't help them do what they want to do, which is make the Fallout MMO, which, if it were to be released and successful, would gain them profits, potentially future development deals, or at least give the principals a good chance to move on to other employment or projects.

 

[Chalksoup]

I guess if it goes sour for Interplay they can use the Fallout trademark to make "FalloutVille" just to be an arse to Bethesda. That and make millions off of the casual market.

I don't believe Casual market know what Fallout is so how would the name FalloutVille be superior to AnythingVille.

You apparently don't realize the power of the microtransaction market. A while back I played a game on my wife's old iphone that was a medieval take on the "ville" idea because I was curious about the whole casual thing. I ended up on a brand new server and after 3 days there was one guy that topped the boards at about 60000 points higher than the next person who had about 4000. I ended up in a guild with the top guy and one day I asked him how he got so much higher than everyone else. He told me he bought 12 of the 99.99$ packages and had been spamming his build queues. Before I had left the game(the game was pretty boring, chating was nice though) there were 4 other people who started to buy and use the 99.99$ packages to try and get ahead of him and each other. I forgot to mention I only played for about a week.

Long story short though "FalloutVille" wouldn't need to be superior to anything out there really. All it would need to do is exist and have some add banners here and there so people could find it. Then it'd start printing its own money. Probly the reason there's so many Ville clones.

 

[Frozengale]

If Bethesda was trying to ruin their PR Cred then they are on the right track. If they are trying to make themselves look like jibbering ninnies that don't understand how licensing and trademarks work, they're already there.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

So, why does Bethesda want to prevent Interplay from making an awesome Fallout MMO which would boost popularity and awareness of previous games again?

 

[TheAbominableDan]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

 

[Frozengale]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

And after you make a game like Superman 64 you can't make a WORSE game. So it's all good.

 

[Ausir]

Without specifics I can only speculate, but since the franchise itself was sold, and the MMO rights re-licensed to Interplay, what seems to have occurred does not actually match up with your description. Presumably Interplay had to pay a licensing fee to make the MMO, and the price of this license either was either reduced from the sale price of the franchise, or offset in some other way that made it attractive to Bethesda for Interplay to continue development. The licensing fee may even be nonrefundable.

For specifics, please read the Vault article linked from this very newspost.

 

[TheAbominableDan]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

And after you make a game like Superman 64 you can't make a WORSE game. So it's all good.

Did you forget their Robocop game?

 

[Kenny Kondom]

Now i like Bethsda games, but when they do shit like this it makes my life as a fan much harder to defend the franchise. Come on Bethsda! Stop letting the side down!!!

 

[Narcogen]

Without specifics I can only speculate, but since the franchise itself was sold, and the MMO rights re-licensed to Interplay, what seems to have occurred does not actually match up with your description. Presumably Interplay had to pay a licensing fee to make the MMO, and the price of this license either was either reduced from the sale price of the franchise, or offset in some other way that made it attractive to Bethesda for Interplay to continue development. The licensing fee may even be nonrefundable.

For specifics, please read the Vault article linked from this very newspost.

Apparently I was too nonspecific in my admission about not having specifics.

I mean the actual full text of the agreements in question, not quotations from court filings but the contracts themselves. The summary I wrote above is based on the Vault article-- that Bethesda purchased the entire franchise (APA) and then licensed back to Interplay the rights to develop the MMO (TLA).

I'm not expecting that anyone outside Bethesda or Interplay to have access to that, just stating that it's difficult to do more than speculate on why Bethesda has taken the actions it has without knowing the entirety of the agreements in question.

For instance, the purchase price of the franchise is quoted from the APA, but not the licensing fee in the TLA, if any.

That said, the current interpreation of the agreement by Bethesda does indeed seem silly and unsupportable. I would speculate that this is their response to the judgment that Interplay is not in violation of the agreement as it stands.

 

[Legion]

Shit, Bethesda making me hate them?

I think I see a flying pig....

Exactly my thoughts. I love the Fallout series and Bethesda did a fantastic job with Fallout 3 but they are being dicks with this.

I know we gamers like to delude ourselves that games are made for the fans but here's one more bit of disillusionment.

So, why does Bethesda want to prevent Interplay from making an awesome Fallout MMO which would boost popularity and awareness of previous games again?

They won't see the revenue from it.

Or they are planning on making one themselves.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Those two original Interplay devs are the ones that fucked over the Black Isle Employess hard.

Er, no, they didn't - you must be talking about the Caen brothers, who are company executives, not developers. The original Fallout developers I'm talking about (Chris Taylor and Mark O'Green) actually originally left the company back in the Fargo days and rejoined Interplay in 2008-2009, long after Black Isle was dissolved, to work on Fallout Online.

Fair enough. But the Caen brothers still pretty much run Interplay. Can't see much good coming from this if those guys are involved. Those two alone destroyed Black Isle Studios and nearly ended Interplay with stupid decisions.

 

[Jesus Phish]

I remember there was going to be a GLC produced Pen and Paper RPG version of Fallout. Bethesda went after them over them using the Fallout name (they had the right to do so when they started working on it, possibly before Bethesda bought the fallout ip).

So they brought them up over it and got GLC to change the name of the Fallout PnP to "Exodus". They kept everything the same and made minor modifications to Pipboy.

So first they go after someone using the name. Now they're saying Interplay can use the name, but it just cant LOOK like a Fallout game.

 

[Ausir]

I mean the actual full text of the agreements in question, not quotations from court filings but the contracts themselves. The summary I wrote above is based on the Vault article-- that Bethesda purchased the entire franchise (APA) and then licensed back to Interplay the rights to develop the MMO (TLA).

Actually, The Vault has full text of the APA and TLA linked from that very article too. I also have the ELA, but in scanned form, not as text that can be easily posted as a Vault article.

For instance, the purchase price of the franchise is quoted from the APA, but not the licensing fee in the TLA, if any.

There was no actual licensing fee - the license was part of the payment for the IP.

That said, the current interpreation of the agreement by Bethesda does indeed seem silly and unsupportable. I would speculate that this is their response to the judgment that Interplay is not in violation of the agreement as it stands.

Yes, as I said before, Bethesda is actually weakening their case by adding ridiculous claims and contradicting their own statements (which is a big no no in court) instead of focusing on the counts where their case is pretty strong. While my opinion of the current management of Interplay is not stellar either, Bethesda has demonstrated that they've been acting in bad faith here.

I wonder when Bethesda will fire their law firm again and hire a new one (they already did it once after they failed to get a preliminary injunction against Interplay).

 

[NLS]

Interplay was basically dead, and as such sold the Fallout franchise to Bethesda.
Then they let Bethesda revive the Fallout franchise with Fallout 3.
And then they say "nu-uh" and work on the Fallout MMO, knowing that it will sell good (thank's to Bethesda's help).

 

[RicoADF]

Interplay is a publisher, not a developer. A publisher buying a publisher does not make any sense.

It does if you want to buy out all their franchises in one purchase

 

[wildcard9]

I'm gonna have to side with Bethesda on this one. Despite how dickish they've been on the whole issue, it's all a matter of who's hands the Fallout IP is better in. Ten odd years ago, I'd be saying Interplay via Black Isles, in that they were the ones who invented and created the post apocalyptic RPG we all know and love today. But, like a deadbeat dad, Interplay neglected and abused the franchise and gave us the travesty that is Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, in which they actually stooped so low as to directly say to the fans who knew this game was crap to fuck off in the credits.

Shift to two years ago: out of all the RPG companies to rescue the Fallout IP, Bethesda was the last one on my mind. Oblivion was the antithesis of Fallout: lots of stuff to do, not a whole lot of engagement or story. Somehow, they made it work. Fallout 3 was a breath of fresh air: a fully realized contemporary FPS version of the old isometric RPG. Bethesda's been good to Fallout, even letting it's original creators now at Obsidian to make the true Van Buren they never did get to make.

My point is this: you have to choose between the lesser of the two evils. I'd rather trust a successful company with a fully realized goal for the franchise as opposed to its neglectful former creators who are in a desperate situation and out of that situation would most likely run it into the ground for quick profit. Besides, do we really need another MMO?